


Just Exchange

by speakmefair



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Gen, M/M, canon AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-10
Updated: 2012-12-10
Packaged: 2017-11-20 18:42:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/588484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/speakmefair/pseuds/speakmefair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erik has learned humility, and Charles has learned acceptance, and those gifts change the world as they know it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just Exchange

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fengirl88](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fengirl88/gifts).



__  
  
_My true-love hath my heart, and I have his,_  
 _By just exchange one for the other given._  
 _I hold his dear, and mine he cannot miss:_  
 _There never was a bargain better driven._

 

Erik had come back. Against all probability, against all fervent and bloody wishes, against all that should or might have been.

He had come back, he stood on a snow-covered step and waited to be allowed admittance, he was there, he was real, he waited, he waited, he was silent and cloaked in red and armoured in his helmet, and yet he waited, and Charles, trapped by his chair, trapped by fear, trapped by Erik's armour of mind and spirit and heart and soul, Charles remembered how —

Charles remembered that —

 

_He loves my heart for once it was his own_

Charles remembered

(on Christmas night, all Christians sing...)

that when they had arrived at the mansion, he had allowed the boys to do most of the discovering. It hurt less when it was actually discovery and not pretence, after all.

He remembered thinking that it hurt less when it wasn't made into a lie by having to look over at Erik's vaguely disorientated and slightly annoyed expression and think he had to explain something. Think he had to explain anything.

Charles's stomach had knotted at the thought of it.

He had walked outside with Raven, and as they stepped outside the house, she glanced upwards towards the sky. A flight of rooks, passing, were very black against its pearly greyness, and she shivered. All that he could have caught from her without intrusion was her strong desire for him not to know why.

"I think it's going to be cold," she had said.

She had been shivering, he remembered that. Raven. Blonde-haired and wide-eyed, belying her inner nature or perhaps showing, for once, how she truly felt — the little girl, the stranger, the outsider, the alien. Small and sweet and strong, Raven, Raven his sister, the honey in the bear-carcass that was living mutation, golden sweetness behind hard bone. She had been shivering, not with cold and not with fear, but like a fever, a resonance of some terrible rhythm, and she didn't want him to know why.

She had never wanted him to know why.

No-one, in those palmy days of hope and disbelieving trust, had seemed to want him to know the why or the how of anything, all of them guarded or evasive in their own peculiar ways — and then there were the two he had promised not to even try and assess, and so very much wanted to, and might even be welcome for once, here, now, in this place —

_No,_ he had thought. _No._

He had known, even then he had known, that he would be forgiven his trespasses, not welcomed into them, never accepted behind those barriers. Not by Raven, not by Erik. No matter his reasons, he had owed it to them not to break his word. Better , he had thought, to hover around the outer limits of the others.

Of Moira, trying to organise something out of constantly self-perpetuating chaos, mingled amusement and worry and frustration clouding her usually crystalline thoughts. No help there, no sanctuary of minutiae into which he could retreat and hide.

Of Alex, who, usually a source of steadfast anger and comprehensible, linear imaginings, was for once evading them, avoiding them, had gone to the roof; Alex who didn't want anyone to go looking for him; Alex who didn't want to talk, and who wanted, so very very strongly, so strongly that it wasn't even necessary to skim over his mind to discover that much, to be left alone.

And from inside the house, where Hank had frantically immersed himself in the futile project of investigating the mysteries of the heating system, there had been brief and vivid flickers of _leave me alone_ from his schematic-trained mind, and, oddly, the same had been coming from Sean, who had so far, at least outwardly, been the most unphased of any of them by whatever life randomly decided for him.

But Erik, _Erik_ —

Oh, even then, and how clear it was to him now, how clear and pained and grief-faceted it was, Erik had seen it all and known it all and hated it for what it forced them to become. Erik, whose avoidance had been nothing like Raven's laughing dance of a turned head, but rather the straight demand, the love of defeat

(be it his or another's)

the joy in argument.

Erik, weeping for loss and embracing life all in one, because Charles had shown him what power could be, in the second's turn of a metal dish. Erik, to whom he had promised belief, and given death, and taken away both in the blink of an eye, oh, not when he had said the words, not when he had given back to a straight avowal —

_I want you by my side...we want the same thing!_

that old negation

_My friend._

My friend, my friend, my friend, his heart had whimpered, and he had seen the same look of grief in Erik's eyes, that ice-rimmed glare turning to grief —

_I'm sorry, but we do not —_

but minutes, scant minutes, before. Minutes before or less than that, perhaps seconds only, his feet weighed down by sand and not made flaccid by some bullet of random chance and utter division. One moment, one point in time that he could not refute nor rewind, not even in dreams

(as he did and always would reflect the bullet that had torn all asunder)

one moment, one stupid, pain-filled, irrevocable moment in which he had made his greatest error, that endless time-filled void into which he had _disavowed_ , thrown off, dismissed all that mattered and cried out —

_They're just following orders!_

and Erik, fresh from overcoming his deepest fear, torn through the heart like some ragged soldier and doomed demi-god of mythology; Erik concussed and disorientated and afraid for the young mutants they had been protecting together, Erik had ripped out those words from his appalling past and given them a meaning Charles had never intended, and snarled back —

_I've been at the mercy of men just following orders. Never again!_

And oh God, oh God, oh God, it had hurt less than it did now, thinking back on it, than it ever had in that moment of personal agony when he had sent Erik away, when he had forced Raven to leave him. It had hurt him, unexpectedly, surprisingly, even in and with remembrance of things past, oh how it had hurt, it had hurt him with the remembrance of things that were now, that were happening, that were real, that continued even now, even now as he breathed, as his eyes remained wide open. It had been and was —

(all that hath been and is)

like waking from a dream and finding it continued, some nightmare, night-terror,

(Raven's back as she crossed the sand to Erik's outstretched hand, and oh, how Charles had longed to join her —)

_He's a devil, not a man..._

another man's mind, another man's soul, a prophecy; a reality he would never call back in a moment of awakening —

_He spreads the burning sand with water...._

Erik, without hope, giving hope, Erik the lover, Erik the beloved, Erik the dichotomy.

Erik who had made himself Magneto, the man who drew himself into iron and iron towards himself.

_Oh, my love!_

(memento mori, mori, morituri te salutans)

And Charles knew that the one-time sudden pain, that double pain, the pain of knowing he could not move and the pain of knowing he had sent them away, that pain which oh God! in thy mercy hear our prayer! that pain of the iron not even Erik could stop, oh, but it had hurt so much less than knowing, as he did now, that one Socratian truth.

_I asked for this._

 

_His heart his wound receivèd from my sight_

And Erik, Erik appeared outside the mansion doors one night in the middle of December — no, not one night, Charles had to admit, not one night, a carefully chosen night, the shortest day-night, the longest night. The man who had chosen all that was the antithesis of excellent and bright had made a mockery of winter itself, and rather than having himself brought to Charles's window, to his door

(behold, I stand at the door and knock)

he came slowly up the stone path and the steps that led to the house, and he smiled beneath his helmet as he came.

His hand rested on the balustrade, and his armoured feet paused. He pulled off a glove, and brushed away the ice-hardened scattering of snow from the pitted marble, his fingertips resting upon it as though he could melt even stone.

Years before, a boy confined by his inheritance and the house he now attempted to bring to life, Charles had read _The Scarlet Pimpernel_ ; had been dismayed by the fact it was written by a woman (why? He still couldn't understand that moment of instinctive downgrading, that moment of thinking it must mean less because such emotion was only made worthy by a male writer) and he had imagined the Lord Percy, as told to the readers, Lord Percy in his madness of love, kissing the worn steps where he remembered his love, his beloved, his _wife_ , setting her feet.

And Erik's hand brought to life more vividly than lips would ever do the pain of lost love. Not for Magneto to bow, to kneel, to whisper with hot breath against cold stone his desires. Only to touch, and relinquish.

And Charles remembered why Erik would stop, why his hand brushed away frozen snow-scatterings, why to him cold marble was more even than flesh. He remembered the day when Raven had shrunk away from touch, and shivered herself into wild laughter, and he himself had begun to withdraw.

_Take heed of loving me..._ Charles mouthed, unseen behind the frosted window-pane.

He remembered their winter. Their blood-red orange winter, and the dead and scattered leaves, and the frozen paths. He remembered running. He remembered the sound of Erik's laughter, and his own unhappiness.

He remembered the sound of warrior children unleashed, remembered how everything had felt like ice-splinters, Snow-Queen splinters, gall-bitter heart-splinters.

He remembered how even then, he had begun to push Erik away.

 

_My heart was wounded with his wounded heart_

He remembered...

"I remember. Erik. I remember."

 

_So still methought in me his hurt did smart_

He remembered how, he remembered that, he remembered another winter....

He remembered that first day, he remembered their joy, he remembered his exhaustion and Raven's shivering, and he remembered how it had turned to farce, as Sean had demonstrated the ability of teenage boys to shout absolutely everything they were thinking at the top of their lungs, whether said shouting was part of a mutant power or not, and thus rendering telepathy or the need to control it absolutely redundant.

Charles had taken a moment to appreciate the irony of that, and then had simply wished that Sean would stop being quite so _loud_.

"ALEX CAN YOU GET DOWN HERE NOW, I COULD USE THE HELP —"

Predictably, there had been no response.

"NO, SERIOUSLY, BECAUSE I JUST FOUND THE —"

There had been a crash, and Erik's voice had said something that was definitely not English, had sounded distinctly annoyed, and had implied that whatever had broken had done so on impact with the speaker. Charles had felt mildly guilty that he was leaving Erik to deal with the horrible disaster that was Sean unpacking, and then had become rather more guilty at how relieved he also felt that Erik _was_ dealing with it, which meant he didn't have to.

"SORRY," Sean had said, no quieter, and there was another crash.

With any luck, Charles remembered thinking, he would have razed most of the house and its contents to the ground before Charles had to think about walking back into it.

"Himmel, infant, mind where you —"

"Oh, cool, baby statues," Alex had said, from within the confines of a thumping rush of feet on stairs and wooden floors, summoned from his monumental task of brooding-on-the-roof by the sound of devastation. There was a prolonged, suspicious silence from inside, where apparently this definition had gained very little approval. "Small statues?" Alex had hazarded then. "Broken, yeah, but — what _do_ you call these things, anyway?"

Raven had abruptly leant against the stone balustrade, laughing too hard for sound. At least she had no longer been shivering with anything but amusement. _Priceless figurines_ , she had mouthed.

"Oh, I do hope so," Charles had said with a faint glow of optimism. That had been — and still was — the other benefit to letting everyone who wasn't him loose on house-discovery — the potential for complete destruction was always just about endless.

"Past repair?" Erik's voice had then suggested. He had sounded vaguely stunned, and Charles had hoped that whatever Sean's disastrous attempts at unpacking had collided with, it hadn't been anyone's head.

"Oh look, this one's got gold bits on it —"

"Shut up shut up shut up! Look, get me a dustpan —"

" _You_ get the dustpan —"

"Just stay where you are, both of you. I will find —" There had been another, rather more splintery crash. "Ah. Woodworm. I didn't know they liked boxes."

Raven had waved a hand frantically, all traces of misery gone from her surface thoughts entirely. "I'll — go help," she had managed at last, and had almost run inside, presumably before she missed any more chaos.

And Charles had leaned back on the balustrade and gasped out breath-laughter, even while he slid down into a crouch, his legs giving out and his knees around his ears while his arse hit the cold stone and chilled his back, and Erik, dust-covered and with splintered china in his hair, had emerged from the sliding French windows, laughing and laughing, hard mirth and real mirth and disbelieving mirth; Erik holding out his hand to pull Charles up from his huddled attempt at defense, pressed against the stone under the balustrade, and his fingers bleached into a tense white, pushed into bone and tendon with the effort from his attempts to brace himself on the steps, and stop himself from falling.

"Baby statues," Erik had said, gravely amused.

And Charles, unable even to smile, had closed his eyes, and nodded, and let Erik pull him to his feet.

 

_For as from me on him his hurt did light_

Erik, on the same steps, calling a future towards them, looked up at Charles, and the smile fell from his face as their eyes met through the frozen glass, a wall always between them even when they wished it otherwise.

_Take heed of loving me...._

There was no deliberation or dramatic gesture when he removed his helmet. He looked like a workman, tugging off his cap; his hair was as flattened and sweat-soaked at the temples as any labourer, and beneath the salt-water darkening, the strands of red-brown were silvering, whitening, bleached out by something more than weariness.

_At least remember I forbade it thee..._

Charles pushed up the sash window, and the icy air hit his face, his mouth; it hit his tongue and throat as he drew in air; it settled in his lungs.

"Erik," he mouthed without sound, trying to call his attention away from whatever infinity the man was seeing, and then drew in frost-splinters along with needed air, drew them in with oxygen and carbon dioxide and life, drew them in to crackle and ache their way into audibility as he breathed out sharp long-held agony into one copper-tasting word. " _Erik_!"

Erik's lips parted, as though to speak, and his bared teeth clenched instead, biting back words behind a barricade of calcified bone.

"Erik," Charles repeated, the name rising upward on frost-mist air.

"Tell them I came," Erik gritted out. "Tell them I came, and no-one heard, that I kept my word...."

"Your dramatic gestures are always going to fail here," Charles said, caught between laughing and throwing heavy things at Erik's unprotected head. "Especially now. It's Christmas. Erik. We're all home."

Erik's eyes closed, shutters against sound, and opened again, narrow and blank.

"Erik," Charles said again, carefully holding down all desire to look into his mind. "Erik, Erik. Come in."

Erik's eyes closed once more, this time on a kind of pained laughter, wrinkled with self-denigration. "I came to wish —"

"Come in," Charles repeated, ignoring him.

_Come to me._

And Erik pushed open the doors as though it had always been his right to do so, as much as it always had been whether he knew it or not, as though he were Alex or Sean or Hank, as though he were one of the children.

He put his hand, not his mind, to the metal rim of the sliding glass door, and he shivered as though he were as feverish as Raven, all that time before, as though he were burning with the words he could never say, as though he were chilled and inflamed by his decision, and Charles, Charles trapped by what they had done together, by —

_She didn't do this, Erik. You did._

_My friend. I'm sorry, but we do not._

by foolish words and foolish results, by plastic and screws and inanimate legs, by wheels and stairs and hate and love, Charles waited until he heard footsteps on the stairs and a babble of voices behind those steps, and still kept his mind to himself, left thoughts alone and had faith — had faith and had faith and was more faithful in that time of waiting that he ever knew he could be — and he stayed, turned away from the window, as the ice thickened outside and the snow began to fall at long last, like a choked drain coughing up spluttering residuals — he stayed where he was, inevitably seated, a living hiatus, until Erik pushed the door open.

Until there was no longer a frosted-enforced barrier between them.

He opened his mouth to say — something, anything, whatever it would take — and the ice was in his throat and the frost sent needles into his lungs, and he could not speak, and Erik was in the doorway, and the door was open, and words had never failed him and always failed him, and what was there to say?

"You're not in my head," Erik said, as he struggled against silence, and Charles's mouth contorted without his volition, as he shivered and shivered, trapped in his chair, wordless and voiceless and pleading.

"You could be," Erik said, and he walked across the room, one step, another, loosening his cape, letting it fall to the ground behind him. "You could be, but you're not."

Charles shook his head, and closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, Erik was kneeling in front of him.

"I could stop you moving," Erik rasped. "There's enough metal in your chair that I could —"

"Your helmet's off," Charles managed, his voice thin and inflectionless, floating out from behind his teeth without volition. "I could take the words before you —"

"But you won't."

"But you won't," Charles repeated, and his next breath was nothing more than a sob. "Erik, Erik, why are you here, why are you —"

"Because I learned something," Erik said, and his arms were around Charles, and they were hard and unyielding and warm; they were a strange haven, and he smelled like old sweat and burned iron and heated exhaustion; and his hair was damp with coppered rain and fear and ice-melt, when Charles let himself lean his face against it. "I learned we're not on the same side at all."

"No," Charles agreed, trying to give Erik the farewell he had always deserved — the kindly one, the gentle one. "No, no, we're not."

"But Charles." Erik pulled back a little, and his eyes were red, even though there was no moisture at their rims. "Charles, there was something we didn't notice. I'm on your side. I'm on _your side_. And, and you're on mine, you, you. You stupid fuck, how didn't you —"

" _Erik_ —"

"Stupid, Charles, how can you be so damned stupid —"

"Erik —"

_Ice-melt_ , he thought, _ice-melt_ , and perhaps that was why his tears felt so cold against his skin —

And then Erik drew away, and put the helmet in his unfeeling lap, and looked up at him and tried to smile.

"You can — see if I mean it," he said, hard quietness in a warm room.

And Charles breathed in, and let the breath out, and put his hand to Erik's cold face.

"I don't need to," he said. "I don't need to."

He was never sure which one of them leant forward first, to make sure of the kiss.

He only knew that their lips met, and their tongues met, and it tasted like passion, like love, like the future. It tasted like copper. It tasted like fear, and like despair, and like tears and grief and mirth at once.

It tasted like hope.

And when he pulled away, and Erik, still kneeling in front of him, whispered —

"Can I stay?"

— there was only one answer for Charles to give.

"As long as it's with me."

And Erik looked up, and his dark-circled eyes creased into laughter long before he breathed it out in sound, and when they kissed once more there was a new taste and a new feel to it.

_Forgiveness,_ Charles thought into the space he had always considered to be the void which was the inevitable lot of a telepath — and warmth and joy and amusement rose to greet him, instead of the aching cold.

Erik's voice.

Erik's mind.

Erik's love.

 

_Hello, old friend._

 

"Hello, Charles."

 

_Both equal hurt, in this change sought our bliss,  
My true love hath my heart and I have his._


End file.
